


arachnophobia

by angelcult



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Canon Universe, Canonical Character Death, Child Death, Graphic Description of Corpses, Metaphors, Past Child Abuse, Past Sexual Abuse, Spiders, Unrequited Love, metaphors of death to growth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-05
Updated: 2019-04-05
Packaged: 2020-01-05 02:40:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18356936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelcult/pseuds/angelcult
Summary: Jim Macken and Alois Trancy are both part of the same card, except neither can live with the other around.





	arachnophobia

**Author's Note:**

> Please heed the tags! As it follows, the story will be canon compliant and touch on talk of rape/abuse.

a·rach·no·pho·bi·a

/əˌraknəˈfōbēə/

noun

extreme or irrational fear of spiders.

 

Jim Macken was not afraid of spiders, in fact, he found them cute. Their many eyes never saw lies, he thought, only truth. When his family died in the flames of a fire that had started because of the ruddy fireplace that had caught a spark, he was surprised to see the spiders that had gathered in the corners of the house had miraculously survived.

 

How was that even possible?

 

He could recall the abuse the town put he and his brother through, all the pain and turmoil. So, they took all the lies and made it truth when they burned the town down, and laid waste to the place of their nightmares. He’d been so happy that night, he smiled and laughed joyously when the village burnt to nothing and only he and his brother remained.. or so he thought.

 

Luka had been quiet, and his body was cold. Untouched by flames or smoke and yet- he lacked a pulse.

 

How could that be?

 

Unless someone killed Luka but there were no marks that the seven year old could see, there was nothing but blank, teary eyes, and a small smile.

 

Years passed and Jim was barely alive, his mind had broke in more than ways than one. Burying his brother had broken his heart, looking around the town and hearing the whispered words of the dead had ruined him because the voices had surrounded and drowned him in their inky darkness, in the whispers and shouts of the word: “Murderer”.

 

When the fae folk came, he remembered how roughly they’d handled him, how they’d dragged him by the hair and ran their hands over his chest and they didn’t have wings, but they had nasty eyes and yellowed teeth and hard words.

 

Then they met a man worse than God (because Jim still believed in God, even when he hurt him much more than he could bear) and he’d beaten him with a cane and said that his blue eyes, the ones that reminded him of his mother every time he got a glimpse of himself were disgusting and rotten- and he couldn’t even bring himself to argue, he just stayed silent.

 

He wasn’t even sure his voice worked, he hadn’t spoken in years, but then.. He learned something about himself.

 

He was much like a spider, in the sense that no one had been successful in exterminating him. Not hunger nor rope had managed to take his life from him, he had eight lives much like the eight eyes of an arachnid.

 

“Say.. What does the old man want from us anyhow?” His voice cracked from disuse, his vocal cords straining and speaking almost hurt, but still.. He wanted to know if he could so easily disguise himself as a butterfly.

 

He knew what those fae wanted from him, anyone could see that past the thinness the 11 year old could pass well as someone of wealth, though he supposed that wealth wasn’t what they had in mind for him.

 

“Alois,” That was his new name, like a dog being given a new leash. “Alois, my sweet boy.” This man was disgusting, from the way he ran his hands over his body to the way he made him wear clothes that covered nothing and made him want to vomit up his intestines, to choke on his bile until he was dead, it was too much.

 

Too much.

 

In the silence of the room, his eyes met the familiar glittering of a web in moonlight as he thought to himself.

 

How can “god” exist.. In a place where death and torture prevailed? How could such a “creator of humans and good” exist in the bowels of a rotten and festering womb like this one? Wombs are places of birth and creation.. but not this one. This one was full of maggots and tapeworms, overgrown and deformed centipedes that cannibalized on each other.

 

It was so vile, so foul a-place that Alois (Jim died, he died in that womb, the centipedes had crawled down his throat and ate him from the inside out) was gagging on his blood.

 

“The itsy-bitsy spider..” He sat up and ignored the gush of something (blood? was is blood?) as he forced himself to move. “Climbed up the water spout.” He paused and stumbled to his feet, ignoring the mess he was making and he slowly made his way to the web and his eyes glittered when he saw the movement in it.

 

“What is it that you wish? What do you want more.. than anything? I can grant that wish..” The spider spoke in a melodic voice, it drew the blond boy in and he glanced over his shoulder at the old man in the bed and then back to the spider.

 

He thought of Luka.

 

“I want revenge. On everyone and everything that has ever hurt me.”

 

“Such a healthy request comes with a price to match.. I can give you all of this in exchange for your soul.”

 

Alois frowned, lips downturned. All this for his soul? What is a soul worth? Is a soul merely worth the request that has been given? Alois supposed his dirt was worth all of those things and less, he felt that maybe his soul had rotted, after all, it was borrowed from the corpse of Jim Macken.

 

“It’s a deal.”

 

As soon as the words were spoken, pain flooded his mouth and he whimpered, helpless to the burning on his tongue that rendered his mind blank and made him cry. He could taste blood and soon.. it all faded to nothing but he could feel it, something rough on the flesh.

 

“Our deal starts immediately.”

 

—

“The Earl of Trancy.. is my father. And he’s died!”

 

Alois played the part well, ignoring the looks of disbelief and hope as he sobbed, staring down into the casket of the absolutely repulsive bastard.

 

“Father..” He didn’t make a move to touch him, he couldn’t if he wanted to, it made his skin crawl. He felt a hand on his shoulder and tensed, only to relax when he smelt flowers and honey.

 

Claude.

 

“My lord, let us go.”

 

He looked up at the demon, his honey-yellow eyes glittering. “There is much work to be done after you have finished mourning the loss of your father.”

 

Alois nodded, like the thought of leaving the man behind actually hurt and he followed Claude, until he was out of the sight of others and he dropped the act, wiping tears from his cheeks and keeping his eyes ahead.

 

Disgusting blue eyes.

 

“Claude, this is an order. You are to never leave my side, not until the day I die.”

 

“I will never leave your side,” he crouched down and placed his right hand over his heart, “I will be beside you until the day you have exacted your revenge and I shall devour your soul, your highness.”

 

Alois smiles widely at that.

 

He would keep Claude, for as long as he could.

 

—

What was love? Alois did not know, or rather the only love he did know was of a boy who was dead in the dirt.

 

As he lay in bed, the demon by his side, and he stared at the wall. He wanted to sleep but he couldn’t, not because he was scared, but because he wondered if demons could love.

 

—

Alois Trancy was not scared of spiders and neither was Jim Macken (his rotten corpse was full of them) but as he stared up at Claude, blood gushing from his side... He was scared.

 

He was scared that Claude wouldn’t save him because Ciel Phantomhive, a butterfly with magnificent azure wings, had fluttered in through the window.

 

And spiders loved butterflies.

 

—

The snarling wolf would have killed him but instead Claude had killed it. He stared up, eyes sad and hopeful but inside he was trembling.

 

Claude kneeled down and leaned in close, like he was going to kiss him and he rested his hands on the side of his head.

 

Alois was scared.

 

Could demons love?

 

When his skull was crushed beneath the hands of the very creature he’d made the mistake of trusting, he discovered that the answer.. was not “no.”

 

It was that the only demons who could love.. were the ones who had someone worth loving.


End file.
